Publishing Your Book

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Design Process

As a publisher, you can have confidence in my ability to provide you with comprehensive concepts, excellent typography, and efficient turnover from first pages to final files. I always meet deadlines and I pride myself on good communication and working relationships.

Independent publishers are an increasingly successful sector of the book industry with more and more authors choosing to pursue publishing. A large number of Spring Book Design clients are authors with a particular topic, theme, or area of expertise. I work closely with you, the author, to target your audience, capture the essence of your words, from typography to cover design, and keep you involved at critical points in production.

In addition, I do a large number of family books that are privately published. See the Family Books section for more information.

I am a one-stop shop. I take you through editing your manuscript, creating the book design and composition, and the printing of your book, or any of these as you need them. And I can provide a seamless connection to marketing, website design, distribution and fulfillment.

I offer a free introductory consultation to provide information and answer your questions.

The journey begins with a comprehensive meeting covering the scope of your plans and materials for your book. I will provide an estimate of costs and specifications to help you determine your budget. Generally, a total investment (including printing) of between $5,000 and $12,000 is needed. Schedules and costs vary depending upon the readiness of your manuscript, the complexity of your project, the quantity ordered, and printing schedules.

Depending on budget and number of copies, your book will either be commercially or digitally printed. Either way you have choices—softcover with a full-color cover, hardcover, dust jacket. Special finishes such as foil stamping, metallic ink, printed endpapers, two-color interior, sewn or adhesive bindery, all can be explored. I work seamlessly with printers and will manage the printing process for you.

Beforesubmitting your manuscript, it should be complete and edited, and any photos or exhibits organized and labeled as to their placement. Formatting should be very basic—only paragraph breaks, heads and subheads, italics, and any special emphasis. I prefer to scan from original photographs and documents and do the conversions from jpegs (digital cameras). Do not embed photos or graphics in your manuscript.

When I receive your manuscript, I transfer it to a computer application specifically for book layouts, Adobe InDesign. Then I work out the design—determining the grid, page size, text block, font combinations, style sheets, white space, and special features—making them all flow in a consistent, interesting, and appropriate layout. Upon your approval of the design, I proceed to the composition/typography phase—setting the text according to professional typographical standards, line by line, until it is uniform and complete and meets the technical requirements for printing. Then I provide a first proof for your review. You will receive two additional proofs for minor changes. I will guide the printing process—quotes, submission, and proofing—and have you pay the printer directly.

I also provide creative and professional cover design. This usually consists of two or three concepts from which to choose one to fully develop. Since the cover design is so important, I often subcontract it with one of my professional design colleagues who specializes in covers.